Piper Jaffray: Priceline Remains Top Pic Among Online Travel Agencies

Piper Jaffray performed its 2nd survey of paid search advertising placement for hotels on local search engines in 63 countries around the world, which showed that 91% of searches in developing countries had at least one advertisement for a Priceline PCLN owned site, up from 82% of searches in its last survey. Over the next few years, the highest growth potential for OTAs will be outside of US & Europe and our survey suggests Priceline is positioning itself to be a beneficiary of this growth. PCLN remains our top pick among OTAs given we believe earnings growth of ~30% annually is achievable over the next several years. Piper Jaffray has a $471 PT and Overweight rating on PCLN PCLN is trading higher at $406.04